Thru time I developed a mechanism of simply blocking everything that has to do with cancer. I did not want to hear about it. It is not that I didn't care, it was just my way of not remembering. Every time I hear that word and they tell me someone has it I can just feel the pain and the suffering of both the patient and the family. This morning before I left for practice I received a message from a High School friend. We graduated in the same class. We were not necessarily close but we hung out at school and he was always around shooting the bull with us. He was a nice guy though, a serviceable, likable guy, a nice guy. He wrote me this morning about him reading this blog and how he was intrested in knowing my story. He is a Chef/Owner of a restaurant in Puerto Rico and was diagnosed with testicular cancer this past April......
He went ahead and told me that he was fine and monitoring any recurrences and reassured me that his diagnosis changed his life just like it did to me 19 years ago. My friend is just another reason I have to do what I am doing. He must be 40 today or very close to 40. When you see this type of stuff happening you can just play the movie in your head and see how it is that this disease breaks every bone in your world and destroys any hope, dreams, or plans you might have. I will go and see my friend very soon. I will let him know my story and I will comfort him in any way I can. I will also let him know about the team why I am doing this Ironman and writing this blog. I will share the story of my friend Winter, and Dawn with him and I will not only tell him, but I will show him how this 11 year old girl and her team is contributing to find the cure so that cancer does not bother him, me or anyone else ever again.
I received an email the other day from Dawn, Winter's mom, Hopefully come August 2011, I will have the honor of crossing the Ironman Canada finish line with her among other friends and teammates. She assured me that Team Winter would be present at the IronMan 70.3 San Juan event. I immediately told Julissa that we needed to take them out for dinner and show them our Puerto Rico. The restaurant was going to be a difficult pick to make. Guess what. Not anymore!!!!
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